The present invention relates to the manufacture of carbon articles from mixtures of binder and carbon aggregate.
It has been shown in studies on baked carbon articles used, e.g. in the aluminum industry as electrodes, that properties of interest, for example, baked apparent density, move through e.g. maximum values as binder content is increased from zero relative to the carbonaceous aggregate content. See, for instance, the article entitled "Dependence of the Density and Other Properties of Bonded Carbons on the Binder Proportion in the Green Mix", by J. Okada and Y. Takeuchi, in Proceedings of the Fourth Conference on Carbon, (New York: Pergamon Press, 1960). The optimum amount of binder will, however, vary depending on such things as the microstructure of the carbon aggregate, the particle size distribution of the carbon aggregate, etc. See, for instance, the text of the paper entitled "Optimum Adjustment of Pitch Content in the Fabrication of Prebaked Anodes Moulded with a Press in the Aluminum Industry", by M. Jarry and J. Pinoir, reproduced in Proceedings of the Third Czechoslovakian Aluminum Symposium, held in Banska Bystrica on Sept. 21, 1976.